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Posted on 04/21/2011 10:47:17 AM PDT by Wuli
QUESTION : WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED IN 2,066 YEARS?
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.
People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
- CICERO - 55 BC
ANSWER : APPARENTLY NOTHING
SSDD.
Riches rolled into Rome like a tsunami of gold.
Now that doesn't mean he was wrong, but it turned out he was narrowly focused on a single method.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the rise of imperial tyranny though, as the citizen-slaves of America crave security and the dole amidst unrest and poverty.
Why would you do that? China's a net loss ~ as every invader soon discovers. There are lot of people there, with great demands for food and stuff.
But Saudi? They've got oil. Actually, the reports are Iraq has even more oil. I think since we are already there we should stay there and start pumping.
Cicero PING!
Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Obama golfs as America burns.
Actual quote from Cicero: “The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall.”
The various additions and modifications floating around on the interwebs are phony. Although there is a real good chance Cicero would have agreed with many if not all of them.
Damn, beat me by 3 seconds.
Absolutely correct. This is why a liberal should be trusted with a position of authority no greater than a college professor or ambassador to Krapistan, IOW, the theoretical world where their cockamamie theories actually work . . . at least in their imagination.
To be fair, the wisdom of a statement is not inherently dependent on who says it. Truth is truth and lies are lies regardless of the source.
Although reasonable people take the source into consideration.
You guys should read Martin Armstrong more, he puts history on a time-line or cycle chart. Greed, power, deception, destruction occurs on a regular basis.
Actual source for most of the verbiage is a 50s historical novel about Cicero.
Who, BTW, was not entirely an admirable character. Set new standards in thinking highly of himself, even for a Roman aristocrat, which took some doing.
But admirable characters were thin on the ground at the time, at least in public life, and tended to not last long.
No matter what form of government a country has, if the people aren't of quality, the country will not be. ...
...This is where the US is today. Obama's election merely confirms this.
About eighty percent of the US Senators do also.
The disturbing thing is that this has truly changed ("hope and change") in the US over the last fifty years. It is virtually impossible to describe that to the newer generations, vis-a-vis historical revisionism, distortion, academic pedantry; other than to personally live one's values.
I want to see Caesar’s birth certificate!!!
Is Trump our Brutus?
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